The Board of Trustees will pay special attention to environmental issues at Duke during its first meeting of the academic year.
The University’s governing body will set aside a full hour for the Nicholas School of the Environment and another hour for discussing sustainability at the University, said Nicholas School Dean Bill Chameides. The dean will present an update on the Nicholas School that will include information about how the school is identifying its strengths, challenges and solutions.
“It’s a great opportunity for me to have a conversation with the Board about the Nicholas School, to bring them up to date about all the really exciting things we’re doing,” Chameides said. “Part of it is to let them know what we’re doing in the school, what our mission is, what our aspirations are, some of the metrics on what we’re doing well and what we need to do better.”
Board Chair and Democratic state Sen. Dan Blue, Law ’73, said the review will be important in order to see how the school is fulfilling its strategic plan and to understand what its leadership’s plans are for upcoming years.
The Trustees will also discuss ongoing plans to reduce the carbon footprint of the campus’s two steam plants, a measure that Chameides called a very important part of the University’s Climate Action Plan. The Board approved the Climate Action Plan at its meeting last October to achieve a carbon neutral campus in the next 50 years.
Gregory Jones, vice president and vice provost for global strategy and programs, will present ways in which Duke is building its infrastructure locally to expand its international presence and give an update on the Kunshan, China campus.
The Kunshan campus is now expected to be completed in summer 2012, Executive Vice President Tallman Trask said.
The Trustees will also discuss a number of campus construction projects this weekend.
The governing body will vote on the design of the School of Medicine Learning Center, said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations. The $53 million building will be funded by a $35 million contribution from the Charlotte-based Duke Endowment, philanthropy reserves and debt proceeds, he added.
Trask said the Trustees will also discuss the construction of two small vivariums—one for the School of Medicine and one for the Pratt School of Engineering. Both will be paid for using a portion of the $202 million in stimulus funds the government has awarded the University, Schoenfeld said.
As part of a discussion of New Campus, the Trustees will consider plans to move part of Campus Drive. The move would cost between $3 million and $5 million and aid long-term plans to construct a new arts building, Trask said.
The Trustees’ meetings will be closed to the media and public this year and have been closed since 2008. Blue and President Richard Brodhead declined this week to change the policy that prevents the media from attending meetings, after The Chronicle formally requested more access.
“That practice [of open meetings]... made it difficult to use the Trustees’ presence to best effect,” Brodhead wrote in an e-mail Thursday. “A recent self-study by the Trustees underlined that their time is best used addressing emerging strategic questions, and that requires the sort of frank discussion that doesn’t happen except on the condition of confidentiality.”
Generally, Duke governance “remains unusually open to students and faculty,” Brodhead said, noting the high proportion of the two groups at Board committee meetings. Brodhead added that like last year, he and Blue will be available for comment after the proceedings to discuss the meetings.
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